instrument for progress. But if we survey the whole race, we must pronounce that generally it has not been so: “Many are called, but few are chosen.”
VI. THE ASCENT OF MAN
At different epochs in history new factors emerge and successively assume decisive importance in their influence on the ascent, or the descent, of races of mankind. Within the millennium preceding the birth of Christ, the communal religions were ceasing to be engines of progress. On the whole, they had served humanity well. By their agency, the sense of social unity and of social responsibility had been quickened. The common cult gave expression to the emotion of being a hundred per cent tribal. The explicit emotions of a life finding its interest in activities not directed to its own preservation were fostered by them. Also they produced concrete beliefs which embodied, however waveringly, the justification for these emotions.
But at a certain stage in history, though
